In stunning move, Boy Scouts’ president calls for historic end to ban on gays

In stunning move, Boy Scouts’ president calls for historic end to ban on gays

Gates said he was worried that if the Boy Scouts didn't act now, the courts would act for them.

The president of the Boy Scouts of America, former secretary of defense Robert Gates, has called for an end to the Boy Scouts’ controversial ban on gay adult leaders, arguing that if the organization doesn’t change from within, it will be changed by outside forces.

Gates said that the organization “must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be” during the annual national meeting in Atlanta, noting that employment discrimination lawsuits and the coming Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriages could have a big impact on the Boy Scouts, so it is important to get out ahead of the issue, according to a New York Times report.

He said that this “will probably happen sooner or later,” so it is important that the Scouts act before the courts act upon the organization.

However, Gates said that local Scouts troops would remain free to discriminate against gay leaders if they wanted to, noting that he supported a policy that allowed local troops — often sponsored by religious organizations — to act in accordance with their beliefs, and that he was afraid that the alternative would be an end to the Boy Scouts.

Gates pointed to his time as defense secretary when he helped end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and talking about how in 2010 a federal judge ruled the policy illegal. He said that only because the military was in the process of changing the law did a judge grant a stay in the appeals court. By doing that, the Pentagon was able to prevent “dramatic disruption” in the military.

He said it was dangerous to wait for courts to act because it could leave the Boy Scouts with a broad ruling that would forbid any sort of standard for membership, which means the Boy Scouts couldn’t discriminate against other groups of people.

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